On the whole (he said) I feel confident that the moral results consequent on the introduction of freedom, have been as satisfactory as could in reason have been expected; and, notwithstanding the very serious pecuniary loss which this measure has entailed in many quarters, few indeed, even if they had the power to do so, would consent to return to the system which has been abandoned.  It is gratifying in the highest degree to observe the feelings now subsisting between those who lately stood to each other in the relation of master and slave.  Past wrongs are forgotten, and in the every-day dealings between man and man the humanity of the labourer is unhesitatingly recognised.

[Sidenote:  Religion.]

We have seen how zealously Lord Elgin exerted himself to realise his own hopes for the prosperity of the colony, by encouraging the spread of secular and industrial education.  Not that he regarded secular education as all-sufficient.  His sympathies[2] were entirely with those who believe that, while ’it is a great and a good thing to know the laws that govern this world, it is better still to have some sort of faith in the relations of this world with another; that the knowledge of cause and effect can never replace the motive to do right and avoid wrong; that our clergymen and ministers are more useful than our schoolmasters; that Religion is the motive power, the faculties are the machines:  and the machines are useless without the motive power.’[3] But, as a practical statesman, he felt that the one kind of education he had it in his power to forward directly by measures falling within his own legitimate province; while the other he could only promote indirectly, by pointing out the need for it, and drawing attention to the peculiar circumstances of the island respecting it.  The following are a few of the passages in which he refers to the subject:—­

[Sidenote:  The Church.]

Much has been done by the island legislature—­more, I think, than could reasonably have been looked for under the circumstances—­towards making provision for the religious necessities of the population.  But the daily formation of small mountain settlements, and the consequent dispersion of large numbers in districts remote from the established places of worship, adds greatly to the difficulty of extending to all these humanising and civilising influences.  The Church can keep its footing here only by the exhibition of missionary zeal and devotion, tempered by a spirit of Christian benevolence and conciliation.  I regret to say that some of the unhappy controversies which are vexing the Church in England have broken out here of late.  Discussions of this nature are singularly unprofitable where the people need to be instructed in the very rudiments of Christian knowledge, and where it is so desirable to keep well with all who profess to have a similar object in view.

A single bishop in a colony, where large